the urge to rescue runs deep. >> that's all for this edition of dateline extra. i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. i take this is an existential threat to california and america and the world, and i'm going to fight it with everything i can. >> california, versus the trump administration. >> jerry said i'll wall off california if trump wins. >> to say there's differences is the height of understanding. >> jerry brown, outspoken and ready for a fight. >> trump says global warming is a hoax.

i say trump is a fraud. >> from seminary student to global rock star. a visionary. >> serve the people, explore the universe. thank you very hutch. >> who was also marginalized as governor moom beam. >> he's out there, kind of far on the edges. >> now despite his age and three presidential failed campaigns. >> it seemed like his political career was over. >> jerry brown won't be counted out just yet. >> jerry brun is going to find out that some people think are too difficult to scale. >> there's a part of him that still looks at the white house and says is there a way? is 82 really too old?

>> yes, we do need a revolution. and we're going to get one. we know something about that in california. >> he's a voice of reason, and there's a consequence of contrast with trump's voice of dissent. >> i think you could make that argument he's more relevant today than he's ever been. >> i can't find a way to put jerry brown and donald trump in the same sentence. not if i'm going to speak about leadership, and not if i'm going to speak about governance. >> battle lines drawn between a governor representing the fifth largest economy on earth with a $9 billion surplus and a president who regularly attacked him and his state. >> jerry brown is doing a terrible job as governor, but, you know? if you like high taxes. >> three lies. open border, lie one. protect criminals, lie two. california wants to secede, lie three. not true. >> the governor of california, nice guy. i knew him a long time ago.

has not done it job. >> the governor made it very clear anytime you attack the things that have helped california succeed, we're going to speak out. >> he's a leader. he punches above his weight. he's not someone who's going to wait for permission. he ands not evasks not even for forgiveness. >> after jerry brown signed a bill that essentially called california a sanctuary state, brown and his administration fought back. >> the trump white house, they said a lot of crazy things, and now they're actually going to legal war against california based on untruths. >> governor brown has said what i had said on the issue of addressing our immigrant family is we protect those who work hard to build up our state and make our neighborhoods better. >> the state of california filed

dozens of lawsuits against the federal government challenging everything from the travel ban to birth control to fuel economy standards. brown not one to mince words vowed to fight what he deemed the quote stupidity of some of the administration's environmental policies. >> this is fundamental issue. this issue of climate change. it is a threat to organized human existence. maybe not in my life. i'll be dead, but when i'm 79, do i have five years more, ten years more, 15? i don't know. 20? i don't know if i can wait that long. but most of you people when i look down here, a lot of you people are going to be alive. >> brown is currently one of the loudest voices in the fight against climate change and has been since the 1970s when his environmental positions them made him an outlier in american politics. >> we're killing the oceans, we're killing the lakes. >> now there's a new timeliness

to jerry brown, the longest serving governor in california history. >> thank you. >> in june 2017 when president trump announced that the united states was withdrawing from the paris climate accord brown sidestepped the federal government forging his own environmental pacts with leaders all over the world. >> i'm not the president, but i am the governor of the biggest state and we're not standing by ourselves. in fact, 175 states and regions are representing over a billgen people, they have all joined our coalition. >> the feud between brown and president trump continued in 2018 against the backdrop of the largest wildfire in california history. on twitter, president trump partially blamed california water policy for the blaze. brown vehemently disputed the president's claims. >> some of the president's statements have no attachment to -- to facts. they're untethered, and they

don't help. >> he's looking at what's been built there. he does not want to see it jeopardizesed, and protecting it is very important. >> in the course of his political life brown has been in elected office a total of 20 years despite three decades in stints in the california statehouse. >> i was one of the youngest governors even though i'm the oldest governor in america. >> he followed ronald reagan and he followed arnold schwarzenegger. i ges that's a testimonial to california politics. >> the brown roots go back to a gold rush. >> my great-grandfather left in 1949, and he got into a city named perseverance, and came over here.

>> as the years passed the family expanded to include. >> he fills out the family tree and he find every one of the relatives who are alive and call them up, and he goes over and visits them. and they're i think just in shock that here's the governor of california. >> brown inherited his inquisitiveness from his mother, bernice lane, a san francisco captain's police daughter who graduated from uc berkeley at 19. his admission came from his father known by his constituents at pat. california's governor from 1959 to 1967. >> pat brown was very interested in building california infrastructure. he opened three university of california campuses in one year, 1965. he built freeways as fast as he could. he built the great california canal that ships water from northern to southern california. he worked hard at building the

california dream. >> on a regular basis pat brown was cited as a potential presidential candidate. but his son, edwin gerald brown, jr. or jerry didn't always present the image the family wanted. >> our neighbors down the street had put new sidewalk down, and so it was wet cement. and my brother had just learned to write, and he wrote big as could be jerry brown. and so when the parents came home and they saw their new sidewalk signed jerry brown, they went and knocked at the house, and my brother was held responsible for it. >> when he reached his teens, though, the young rebel seemed to undergo a metamorphosis. >> he says he doesn't remember this, but it -- it happened. his girlfriend at the time organized a surprise birthday party for him, and he never showed up. it was during lent, and he had gone to do the stations at the

cross at five churches or something in san francisco, and we knew that that was something serious. >> the governor's son and namesake was called to the priesthood. >> my mother would not let him enter the seminary until he turned 18. he wanted to go when he was 17, and she said, no, you cannot. she was not raised catholic, and she did not want her only son to go into it. and she thought i think he'll get over it if he waited. >> but after a year at santa clara university brown entered a jesuit seminary where he was expected to spend most of his day in meditative silence. >> well, i remember the first few weeks maybe longer than that i had a pain in my stomach. i couldn't talk, and i'm so used to talking and i talked a lot. >> after 3 1/2 years brown tired of the rules and obedience and left the seminary. after graduating from uc

berkeley he attended yale law school. >> he comes back to california and takes the very tough california bar exam, and he flunks. then he goes and just absolutely shuts himself away from the world at the governor's mansion and he studies and studies and studies. >> he'd been studying on the third floor for the california bar exam, and he heard this noise down in the living room. and it was late at night, and he went down stairs and he listened and he realized it was jess unra the speaker of the state assembly and rival in many ways to my father, and they were arguing violently about a major, you know, policy and political issue. and jerry said this is definitely more interesting than what i'm doing. i think that captured his imagination. >> on his second try brown passed the bar, but a career in law was not in the cards. he had his sight set on other

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he was also excited by it. i didn't want to call it business but it's certainly a family tradition. >> this is part of the american tradition. >> in 1966 jerry brown's father was running against a political outsider named ronald reagan. >> as of now i am a candidate seeking the republican nomination for governor. >> pat brown was like a lot of democrats. he didn't think ronald reagan was a serious political force. ronald reagan was an actor. he wasn't just an actor, he was a washed up actor. >> he he beat the incumbent with 57% of the vote.

>> when jerry brown's father was defeated by ronald reagan, that was literally the exit for that round. and interestingly enough the entry for jerry brown. >> after holding a number of smaller offices the second generation politician was elected california's secretary of state in 1970. he was 32 years old. >> jerry came into a quiet pack water of an office and promptly started making headlines just as fast as he could. >> with reagan planning to leave the governorship to pursue national office, brown announced his candidacy for his father's old job in 1974. >> if only young men could have the same name as the governor of california? >> i think in the next four or five months i think there's potential greatness in my son. >> he also took advantage of the

fatigue with the republican party. >> therefore i should resign effective at noon tomorrow. >> 88 days after president nixon's resignation 36-year-old brown was swept into office. >> he had this aura of liberalism and cleaning up politics, and he had not a breath of scandal associated to him. >> it was part of opening up government and appointing people like me, a 24-year-old woman, never had held a job. i think i had four or five jobs in his administration and was always the first woman to do it. hispanics, african-americans, asians. really making the government of california look like the people of california. he was very interested in shaking up the system. >> brown refused to live in the newly constructed governor's mansion. choosing a simple apartment in sacramento instead and rejected the official limousine.

>> my father had a limousine, i rode in it before. in fact i rode it in the opening of the stadium in san francisco. and people pounded on the window. they were not happy. and i said, wow, this is not a good move. i'm going to avoid limousines. >> brown asked his chief of staff gray davis, a future guv negative himself to assign him a nondescript car other general legislators used. >> we've got plymouths this year and i said blue. and there's only one car awaiting us, and it's blue all right but it's powder blue. and he says, oh, great, that's not it, is it? and i said i'm not sure, governor, but i think it is. >> it was a bit not quite a muscular tone than i was probably looking for, but there it was and i accepted it. >> unlike most prior governors

brown had neither a wife or children. he did, however, have a high profile girlfriend. singer ronda ronstat. >> it really surprised me just knowing my brother is kind of a normal average sometimes geeky guy to have emerged with this celebrity status. >> jerry brown standing over there by the bar, and oh, i didn't mean to run out before i was governor but i was secretary of state. so you had to be a somebody to get in the game, and i did enjoy that. it was a wonderful relationship, and i certainly still admire her and see her from time to time. >> but still dating was secondary to brown who promised voters new politics and expected staffers to help him realize it. >> there were many hours late into the night with a stream of consnes consciousness and one idea

flowing to another. >> tenvironmental preservation, fighting nuclear power, trying to develop alternative sources of energy. >> the austere former seminarian also chose to keep weathered furnitu furniture from prior administrations in his office. >> it's kind of unseemly to have a hole in your rug. he says that hole has saved us several hundred million dollars because people cannot come down here and pound on my table and say i need money for that program or that program if the governor has a hole in his carpet. that hole is going nowhere, leave it alone. >> he'll ask a staffer, where are you staying? i want to know what hotel

they're staying at, and let them know he stayed on the couch of a friend's house and paid nothing. >> california experienced a budget surplus. still some legislators were disenchanted with the young governor. >> he liked to give stern little lectures about how people ought to behave. >> i had ideas that were a little less tethered than the normal day to day, you know, schools, crime, taxes, roads, and that kind of stuff. >> among them a proposal for california to launch its own communications satellite. in response indicated newspaper colonist mike royko labeled brown governor moon beam. >> it told voters this is not a politician you have to necessarily take seriously. >> it's really important for new technology, space monitoring.

>> this is hurly-burly give-and-take, and you've got other people who want to take your job. if you don't have pretty thick skin, this is not the business to be in. >> when jerry brown said we really do need to think about alternative sources of energy, when he talked about wind and power, when he talked about solar power, way ahead of his time. and at that time that meant something derogatory and now it would be visionary. >> let us get on with the business of rebuilding our energy self-sufficiency. >> it's an issue that has stayed with him for nearly half a century. today more than ever. >> what's needed and wanted are political leaders dealing with the threat of climate change. so i'm not the president, but i am the governor of the biggest state. and what we're doing others can do. >> royko eventually retracted his comments and apologized to

brown, but by then the governor was looking away from the statehouse and towards the white house. coming up -- >> if jerry brown had made a decision two weeks earlier to get in, he would have been elected president of the united states. this is an insurance commercial. but let's be honest, nobody likes dealing with insurance. which is why esurance hired me, dennis quaid, as their spokesperson because apparently, i'm highly likable. see, they know it's confusing. i literally have no idea what i'm getting, dennis quaid. that's why they're making it simple, man in cafe.

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i'm coming in this 11th hour, and i'd like a chance. would you give it to me? >> i swear jerry started thinking about a presidential bid three minutes after arriving in the governor's office. if you're the governor of california you have to walk a narrow plank. you have to say things, like, well, i have this big job as governor of california, and that's what i'm going to do. and jerry didn't quite walk that path. >> as the 1976 presidential primary season began georgia governor jimmy carter came out of nowhere establishing himself as the democratic front-runner. >> it's time for new leadership. it's time for our country to move. >> and the democratic party started to get nervous. they say we don't really know this guy, if he's going to be a good president, we don't know if we want to nominate this guy. and jerry brown is out there in

california, largest state in the country twr country, primary is dead last. and jerry brown looks around and decides in may of 1976 you know what, i'll go for it. >> i suppose vanity is a driver there. the ambition is there. i wouldn't have run for president less than two years after i was governor if i didn't have a very powerful driechb to say let's do this. so i did it. >> it's a friday afternoon. jerry calls three or four reporters over, print reporters, and has them sort of extract from him whether he's running for president. and he said in effect i guess i am. >> the process reaches its conclusion. >> about 7:00 in the evening gray davis called me and said jerry just announced for president. there is no committee. there has been no money raised. we didn't know he was going to announce. well, we put a campaign together

literally in about 36 hours. and so we put jerry on an airplane, and he flew to maryland, and we won the primary. we started to get into the oregon primary. well, we couldn't. it was closed up. so jerry brown decided to run as a write-in candidate saying don't write me off, write me in. and we came within three and a half points of winning. >> jimmy carter finally got just enough delegates to just get past the finish line. he's almost like a sporting event where you say if the game had just lasted five minutes longer, the team could have pulled it off. >> if jerry brown had made a decision two weeks earlier to get in, he would have been elected president of the united states. >> despite carter'svictsry in the general election. >> it's time for us to get together and make our nation great. >> his presidency was marred by

an energy crisis, inflation and of course the taking of 52 american hostages by supporters of the new islamic republican iran. >> the government's worst fears about jimmy carter had been realized and they want him out. and they also think he's likely to lose the election in 1980. and so there is an opening for a democrat to run against jimmy carter in the democratic primaries and potentially beat him. >> the times fall out for discipline and for vision. and because i see neither i offer myself as a candidate for the presidency. my principles are simple. protect the earth, serve the people and explore the universe. >> it was rather grand when you think about it. protect the earth. how the hell are you going to do that? explore the universe, serve the people. but that was the way it came to me. >> our presence here tonight will help protect the earth,

serve the people, explore the universe. thank you very much. >> technology, the moon shot of getting energy from outer space, exploring outer space, the human mind-expanding. bullet i framed it in that kind of grand way that made it certainly subject for ridicule. >> it got more complicated when senator kennedy announced he was running. it was hard for the public to deal with three people running for a major office. >> he couldn't make a dent in the national consciousness given all the oxygen in the room was being used up by jimmy carter and ted kennedy. >> he goes to wisconsin. >> in order to stage a modernistic television extr extravaganza to boost his campaign, and there were supposed to all kinds of special effects run by the director, he

had a chroma key, and chroma key didn't work, so things break down. and it turned into a fiasco. >> looks very spacy, new agy, the kind of thing governor moon beam would put on the air. and i think he finishes about 10% in wisconsin, he says on the spot that's it, i'm out of the race, i'm done. >> in 1982 as his second term was windsing down he made a decision to run again, not for governor, not for president but the united states senate. >> i was a little tired of being governor. at that point in my life i was looking for a little more excitement and day to day. you have to show up and preside, which i never really cared. a lot of it was being there and you're the symbolic umbodiment of the state, and that gets tedious. >> i don't think he wanted to be senator. he served as governor. he had a run for president, he had a lot of scars as you

accumulate in politics. and i think it was just not meant to be. >> what are you going to do if you don't win in. >> i don't know. i'll take a day and reflect on it. i'm sure i'll come up with something good. >> he loses by 7 points to pete wilson. >> i believe that the people of california would like a respite from me, and in some ways i'd like a respite from them. >> and now it looks like jerry brown has sort of come full circle. he's looking at a future where he's a young man with really nowhere to go in politics. >> brown was about to go into political exile. what followed was a long spearu spiritual retreat. coming up -- >> jerry's attack on hillary during that campaign against bill clinton might indeed have been the beginning of the crooked hillary theme. >> i don't want to say nothing

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i'm dara brown. the hour's top stories. additional migrants have joined the caravan of thousands of people fleeing honduras. president trump is using the caravan to attack democrats on their immigration policy ahead of the mid-terms. and in taiwan 18 are dead and 170 others injured on monday. the express train was carrying 350 passengers. now back to "headliners jerry brown." i'd run for office more than most human beings in america, and i like running for office. it's exciting. it challenges you. you know, not to put your foot in your mouth, and you can screw it up very easily. so it's a bit of a high wire act. >> but after losing the 1982 senate race 44-year-old jerry

brown's political prospects appeared thin. >> it seemed like his political career was over then, and jerry did go off to brood and study the internal truths. >> his studies took him to japan where he immersed himself in zen buddhism and india. >> for all the wilderness exploration he's doing, he still wants to be somebody in politics. he's still looking for a path. >> it's unusual when somebody who's governor wants to be state chair, i acknowledge that. >> after doing a great deal of meditation jerry brown became the chairman of the california democratic party. now, i don't know what kind of mental shifting of gears you have to do to do that, but jerry did that. and it's another illustration of the combination of wisticism and

practical politics that has been present throughout jerry's life. >> i i want to prove it by building the most powerful democratic party in america. if i do that, i think people will-call upon me. >> george bush, sr. president of the united states, run for re-election in 1992. and there isn't a democrat out there who's willing to run against him? why? because bush has just led the first gulf war, the 1991 gulf war. and jerry brown, he's saying to himself if this democratic nomination is wide open, and maybe i can step forward and i can win the democratic nomination. >> they said before i left office that i will return. a little grandiose, mccarther in my mind, i will return. and i did. >> and keeping with his reputation as a political reformer, brown refused to take any donation in excess of $100 and accumulated an army of

idealistic volunteers including family friend and future lieutenant governor and 2018 candidate for governor gavin newsome. >> i was looking envelopes back when there were envelopes to lick. couldn't take more than $100 because of corruption. he'll happily take more than $100 today. >> that was the idea, repeat the number as much as possible so the number is tattooed on the person's brain, so they don't forget it. and i'm telling you a quarter of a century later i can tell you the number. 1-800-426-1112. >> but the campaign is remembered most for this acrimonious television debate seen an abc for democratic front-runner bill clinton. >> he is funneling money to his law firm for a state business. number two, his wife's law firm is representing client from the state of arkansas agencies, his

appointees. >> that might have indeed been the beginning of the crooked hillary theme. >> but you ought to be ashamed of yourself for jumping on my wife. you're not worth being on the same platform as my wife. >> i'll tell you something, mr. clinton -- >> i don't want to say it's personal, but something like that might describe my state of mind. >> i don't think bill clinton ever forgave jerry for the nastiness of that campaign. >> he called me last week and sounded pretty friendly to me. >> in the end clinton won both the nomination and the presidency. >> this is jerry brown. >> brown took refuge in oakland where he hosted a syndicated radio show from the warehouse he owns. >> oakland, california, is sort of the forgotten city of the bay area, much poorer, got a very high crime rate. >> hello. >> how are you? >> yet brown became so attached

to the city he announced his intention to run for mayor in 1998 as an independent. >> go jerry, go jerry go! >> oaklanders, i think were flattered that a former governor would condescend to run for mayor in their city. >> when he won people said, what, he's not going to be interested in this job, it's too small for him. >> i'm going to do my very best to make this city a place where things can work. as a matter of fact, i t thoroughly loved being the mayor of oakland. if somebody builds a new restaurant, it's there. you see it go from nothing to something. it's all real. it's tangible. you can touch it, smell it, you

can react to it. >> by then brown had virtually experience in almost every aspect of politics. but he was still missing one vital experience. >> my father kept saying jerry you need a get a wife. >> and then he was introduced to anne gus. >> anne a chief administrative officer for the gap and oakland mayor married in 2005. >> he didn't come to jerry as a naive woman with not much of a background in politics. her family had been in politics. she was very politically astute and gave jerry good advice. >> it was assistance he'd need as he'd embark back to the path of the office that made him the subject of national fascination. coming up -- >> here he is on the cusp of getting back the biggest

governorship in the country, governor of california at 72 years old. it is really one of the ultimate come backs. that is if he can pull it off. o. alright, up and down, never side to side, shaquem. you got it? come on, get back. quem, you a second behind your brother, stay focused. can't nobody beat you, can't nobody beat you. hard work baby, it gonna pay off. you got this. with the one hundred and forty-first pick, the seattle seahawks select. alright, you got it, shaquem. alright, let me see. burning, of diabetic nerve pain these feet... ... made waves in high school... ...and built a career in construction. but i couldn't bear my diabetic nerve pain any longer. so i talked to my doctor and he prescribed lyrica.

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oh, this is too hot, mate. we need someone with insider's knowledge but an outsider's mind. >> it's back to the future in california. former governor jerry brown announced today he's running for governor. >> in 2010 jerry brown decided to make a run for the office he last held 27 years urearlier. >> usually they don't get a second act. >> but brown's political saga had so many bends and turns that a different standard applied. >> here is jerry proun who had made himself a huge character in national politics in his 30s who

then descended into the darkest depths of nonexistitance in politics, and now here he is on the cusp of getting back the biggest governorship in the country. governor of california at 72 years old. it is really one of the ultimate come back stories if he can pull it off. >> brown appealed directly to the public on youtube. >> no more puffy slogans and platitudes. you deserve the truth, and that's what you'll get from me. >> some people said, oh, jerry again, ho-hum. but a lot of younger voters said jerry brown, wonderful. he's going to shake-up the political establishment. now, how you can be viewed as a person who's going to shake-up the political establishment when you've been governor for eight years and you're the son of a governor, i don't know. >> one newspaper compared him, but his republican opponent

former ebay ceo had the resources to wage a serious battle. >> 40 years in politics and failure has followed him everywhere. >> she's running with an unlimited bankroll. whatever amount her advisers tell her you need to win the governorship, she will write that check and maybe a good more for measure. and jerry brown is looking at this race and saying maybe i'll lose this. and he had to do something very hard for him, call bill clinton. and he gets bill clinton to come out to california and campaign for him. >> will you do it? will you elect jerry brown? >> if you transported somebody from 1992 to 2010 california and showed them bill clinton and jerry brown standing on the same stage singing each other's praises, wouldn't have believed it. >> before midnight on election night whitman conceded and brown was about to begin an unexpected

second phase as governor. >> 28 years later full of energy, full of creativity and ready to serve, you, the people of california. >> the important ingredient in judgment and leadership is being able to see from different points of view. and do look back and say, oh, i kind of saw it that way in 1980. 1990 was a little different. and today i see it in an even different way. >> he was more disciplined in the first year when he came back than we ever expected. got focused on solving the budget crisis, which seemed unsolvable. he fixed it. >> 17 is not 4. 19 is not 8 and 21 is not 7. that is real. that is real. that's stuff we're not doing. now we're going to wipeout that with more cuts and the taxes. that's the plan. >> he had a tax increase that the voters actually voted on and

approved and he was able to turn a deficit into a surplus. >> a $9 billion surplus in 2018, a far cry from the $27 billion deficit brown faced when he entered office in 2011. >> some people might argue he's less idealistic. i'm not sure that's true, but he's a far more pragmatic meat and potatoes politician today than he was 35 years ago. >> a long time proponent for alternative medicine brown's perspectives on public health were challenged when he underwent radio therapy for prostate cancer in 2012 and again in 2017. still he managed to maintain a full work schedule. and as the political landscape changed the governor of the nation's biggest statewide do battle with a new president, donald trump. fueling speculation about yet another run at the oval office. coming up --

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one of the seven gifts of the holy spirit is fear of the lord. and i thought about that. a lot of people aren't afraid and they do really stupid things. you need a range of states of mind to handle the complexities of life. >> as jerry brown nears the end of his fourth term as california governor, he continues to tackle the most serious issue he sees confronting humanity. >> most of the scientists in the world think that climate change is very serious matter that has to be attended to. that if it is not attended to

sufficiently millions, tens of millions, possibly hundreds of billions of people and other forms of life will suffer. >> it's a fear shared by pope francis, another former jesuit seminarian. in 2015 brown was part of an organization organized by the pope on global warming. at the time the president was barack obama who described the reduction of carbon emissions as a top priority. but the election of 2016 changed everything. >> so obama's talking about all of this with the global warming and a lot of it's a hoax. it's a hoax. >> and being of course calling to lock up his political opponent. >> crooked hillary has not talked about it, folks. >> these are unheard of utterances by an american presidential candidate. >> they're bringing drugs. they're bringing crime.

they're rapists. we will build a great, great wall. >> jerry said i'll wall off california if trump wins. >> how do i react to it? look, i've been around this political business a long time. i've seen things come and go. but trump is really -- he is way off the norm. >> the trump administration started to take shape. in california immediately there was just a scramble. not necessarily led by governor brown but legislators, you know, the attorney general, everyone just sort of scrambling to show defiance right off the bat. >> those first few days it was, well, we're just going to keep doing what we're doing. hopefully we've got a partner in d.c. but if we don't, we're going to keep moving.

it's about making sure they don't get in our way as we move forward. >> the policies of donald trump prompted brown to speak out against the president with regularity. increasing the visibility of the governor and keeping california on the front line between the administration and progressive causes. >> i can't think of two more opposite people than donald trump and jerry brown. >> jerry quite literally is the antidote to trump. he's always above the fray and thinking in terms of a generation or two ahead. >> the united states will withdraw from the paris climate accord. >> the climate skeptics that don't quite get it, they're on political pluto, and we're going to have to bring them back to earth. we need a president, we need a federal government, but they're right off frolicking on a detour, not coming to grips with this problem and many other

serious problems. and let's get the bill signed. >> in july 2017 brown extended legislation signed by his predecessor, republican arnold shwarzenegger designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. >> there was arnold and there was jerry, and that is quite a contrast. but you have to remember this is california. and for californians the juxtaposition of jerry brown and arnold shwarzenegger probably isn't that remarkable. >> this is man who saw a lot of migs coming with climate change, global warming. and now he could play a leading role he was really ready to play several years ago. >> some the laws they have that are crucial to changing climate change go back to when he was first governor, the trump administration is trying to push back and revoke california's authority to do all these things, and he's dead set on not letting that happen. >> days after president trump

announced his plan to withdraw from the paris accord brown arrived in china taking the mantle as a de facto environmental ambassador for the united states. >> it's crucial what trump is doin -- china is doing, and i want california to collaborate. >> every year as governor is better than the one before. >> in his last year as governor brown signed more than 1,000 bills from gender issues to criminal justice to net nuteralty and climate change. certainly there are still big problems to solve in california like poverty and homelessness. >> all i can say is let's get at it. >> jerry brown's current term expires in 2018, the same year the outgoing governor turns 81. leaving both allies and adversaries wondering about what the feisty politician might do next. >> i have no idea what the next iteration of his life and his career would be, but he's not going away.

and he's not going to get quieter. >> officially brown plans to live on the culoosa, california, ranch first settled by his great grandfather. >> it's hard to imagine him having a glass of water on the porch on the farm. he's unpredictable. >> jerry is definitely, there's a part of convinced where a part of him is saying is 82 really too old, what if i promised one term only? >> running for president as jerry knows as well most anyone is an arduous, difficult, messy business. i don't think he needs that at this stage in his life. but this is a moment where all of his skills, all of his experiences are desperately needed nationally. >> the stakes are very high. they couldn't be any higher.

that is our central problem. we don't see the consequences, but i think insight and wisdom and a certain experience in life can help minimize the blindness that is inherent in human kind. due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. >> msnbc takes you behind the walls of america's most notorious prisons. into a world of chaos and danger. now, the scenes you've never seen. "lockup raw." inside every prison cell or in any jail bunk, we find harrowing stories. >> all of a sudden there's just blood coming out of my eye, and i knew i got shot. >> i never seen death before. so i put the rope around his neck and killed him. >> unique personalities.